


The Lost Recordings

by StellarOwl



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: But definitely plausible, Crack, Gen, It's an alternate universe, ignore the anachronisms, that's my excuse for everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:35:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27728192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StellarOwl/pseuds/StellarOwl
Summary: In which Caroline finds recordings that Cave made while drunk.I based this work of art on Portal 2 YTPs. So you know it's gonna be (bad) good.
Relationships: Caroline & Cave Johnson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	The Lost Recordings

**Author's Note:**

> Based on these YTPs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXUJX0EyeTo and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPo3YyCP  
> Also, I maybe kinda sorta mixed together movies and tech from the wrong time periods, but hey! It’s a different universe! Who knows! Don’t worry about it, this is just for fun.

Caroline arrived at work punctually, as usual, and found it strange that the light was already on in her boss’s office. Usually, he showed up a couple minutes after her, holding a large coffee. She opened the door a crack and peeked in. Cave Johnson was passed out on his desk. His computer was on, and so was the small TV on the opposite side of the office. There was an empty wine bottle on the floor, and the DVD cases for multiple Spider-man movies were stacked on a folding chair. More worryingly, his recording device was out.

Had he really stayed in his office all night to have a drunk Spiderman marathon? Caroline had to admit it wasn’t the strangest thing her boss had done. But, still… most of his recorded messages were a little iffy, even when he was sober. She shuddered to think of what a _drunk_ Cave Johnson Pre-Recorded Message™ would sound like.

Unfortunately, she would have to find out. No doubt, when he woke up and learned that he’d made more recordings, he’d insist that she put them in the testing rooms, right away. If she listened to them now, she could probably delete any _particularly_ questionable ones and he wouldn’t miss them. She carefully grabbed the device off of the desk, plugged in her headphones, and pressed Play.

_“Hello, money. Cave Johnson here.”_ The first recording began. Off to a _great_ start. She already knew she’d have to delete this one. _“Make those dual portal devices out to cash. We’re done here.”_

Done. Deleted. On to the next one.

The next one was only part of a recording. He must have started the recording late. _“-banging portal devices together. We know how to make a table. See? Portal here, portal there-- Ow!”_ Had… had he injured himself pretending to jump through portals? The man was an absolute mess. Sometimes Caroline felt more like his babysitter than his secretary. She sighed, deleted that recording, and moved on to the next one.

_“Hello, investors. Cave Johnson here. Not gonna lie to ya, the cake is a lie.”_ What? What did that even mean? Oh, he was probably talking about the time he’d offered the “volunteer” test subjects cake. She could have bought some if he had given her any prior notice. But this was a memo for investors? Oh, well. Half the things he said didn’t make sense, even when he _wasn’t_ drunk. She deleted that piece of audio and moved on.

_“Hello, investors. J. Jonah Jameson here-”_ Caroline had to stifle a chuckle. J. Jonah Jameson? Wasn’t that the newspaper guy from Spiderman? She glanced over at the stack of movies on the chair. She hadn’t realized that he was such a big fan. Maybe he’d have their chemists try figuring out how to make web fluid next. It wouldn’t be his most outlandish idea. She just hoped he wouldn’t tell the biologists to make radioactive spiders.

She rewound the audio clip so that she could hear it properly and listened again.

_“Hello, investors. J. Jonah Jameson here. Now I know you sunk the Titanic, but don’t worry, I’m here to tell you good job.”_

Sunk the _Titanic_?

Okay, forget about deleting all the embarrassing recordings. She was keeping this one for herself. She took a moment to copy it to her USB drive, then deleted it and pressed play again.

Next, there was some sort of rant about the turret color choices. Or, at least, she assumed that’s what he had been talking about, but it actually sounded more like he said “toilet”. He said that the colors came in “Crap, crap, and mega crap,” which was a little unfair. The designs weren’t _that_ bad! Okay, the brick patterned one was a bit odd. But could you really expect any better if you had the engineers picking out the patterns? What did he expect, for one of them to have a degree in fashion?

_“Cave Johnson here. Humans cannot be trusted.”_ Finally, the man said something reasonable!

 _“Fact: The key to any successful test is humans, and as our data clearly shows, humans are fat. The solution: build better humans. Our data clearly shows, better humans cannot rust.”_ Okay. Never mind then. _Not_ reasonable. Although the “data clearly shows that humans are fat” part could make a pretty scathing insult with some refining. Not that she would probably ever use such an insult; her job required her to be polite even to people she hated. But they were fun to come up with.

 _“Then, run those humans through the floor with a crusher,”_ the recording continued. _“Then fire the guys who made those humans and build robots! Then crush those robots and build better robots! Then fire the guys who built those robots! I didn’t know they let idiots in Aperture Science! Am I to understand that you cannot build robots? Can you even build a test chamber!? You are a worthless, friendless--”_

Caroline didn’t listen to the rest. She just deleted it. Next were a series of attempts at describing the test chambers.

_“This is a chest--”_

_“This is a chest chamber.”_

_“This is a floor.”_

_“This is a test chamber. Four hundred walls, sixty ceilings, and a floor. Good enough for science.”_ It was also apparently a good enough take, because after that he stopped talking and the recording was just full of white noise. Or maybe he was just trying to picture what a room with sixty ceilings would look like. _Delete._

_“My father is a sad little octopus.”_ Again, Caroline struggled to not laugh. She considered saving this quote as well, but it wouldn’t be worth it. Nothing would top Cave Johnson calling himself a Spiderman character and congratulating investors on sinking the Titanic. _Delete._

The final recording:

_“I’m not gonna lie to ya, Aperture brand products clearly cannot be trusted. The solution? *snap* Fire Cave Johnson.”_ Said in the same, enthusiastic tone he always used for his “brilliant ideas”. But he was talking about firing himself. What the heck was going on? Before she could think about it too much, Caroline deleted the last audio clip. Fortunately, Cave had remained asleep the entire time. She placed the recording device carefully back on his desk, left the room, closed the door, and then knocked as though she had only just arrived.


End file.
